


four times jim nearly lost his arm fighting destiny (and one time he didn't)

by laniekayaleese



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Alien Sex, Aliens, Aliens Made Them Do It, Alternate Universe stuff, Awkward Flirting, Carnivorous alien sex, Destiny, Five Times Meme, Friends to Lovers, Jim has a death wish, Jim has a rebel streak, Jim is Pining But Doesn't Know it Yet, M/M, Space ship porn (just a little bit though), Spock gets hot under his shirt a lot
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-16
Updated: 2014-10-19
Packaged: 2018-02-21 09:28:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2463332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laniekayaleese/pseuds/laniekayaleese
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jim is fundamentally opposed to anything that's expected, yet all his life he's felt chased by a sense of 'destiny,' and has bucked against it at every turn. The results of his rebellion are… well, predictable.  (Kirk/Spock)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. one. the boy who had to be moving.

 

 

 

 

 

Jim Kirk can feel it hovering at the edge of the sun-baked horizon. _What's coming?_ He isn't sure. It feels like the first hint of an August storm, when the air gets thick and close. It makes him think of the blackbirds abandoning the rows of alfalfa and corn, returning to their nests to hide from winds that'll raze everything. That's the way it's threatening him. But what's different from a storm is that he's the only one who seems to know it's moving in.

 

At 'just' five and a half, Jim's confident he can figure out a better escape strategy than the birds have done. He sits on the edge of the front porch, chips away some flecks of paint with his index finger, exposing an older layer of acrylic and thinks. He has already realized that objects far away don't look so big and wonders how he can keep that storm-feeling far away, keep it small and in the distance. If there's a way he can stay bigger than it, if he could just stay ahead of it… 

 

When he tries out his idea, it's better than he'd expected. It's great to be running. With his feet pounding against dry earth, a lot of things shrink down, nearly disappearing: the little house, and the postbox at the end of the farm road. And then a lot of things get bigger: the grey sky, the amount of space that his body takes up - like a supernova, he thinks, he's just learned about those - he's growing bigger than himself, crazy fast. He's hurtling through space, he's--

 

\--exhausted when he returns home. It's late and he's rarely seen his mom this angry or scared without a bottle in her hand. When she shouts at him, he affects attention from the edge of the sofa, nodding and widening his eyes at all the right places, inwardly planning out how where he'll go running next time, and how he'll keep her from discovering him.

 

One night while his mom is out on a date and he's reading George's PADD from beneath the covers, the sound of rain and wind beating against the house causes a few things to fall into place. That thing he feels sometimes, Jim realizes, isn't like a storm after all. He he has a hunch that it's connected to this unfamiliar word he's found in the text. Jim lights his finger on the screen where the word "incumbency" is transcribed, and when it's highlighted and recorded (unexpectedly. George must have updated the software to a version with this new feature) Jim shivers straight to the last vertebrae at the end of his spine. 

 

Running helps him put that feeling far away. So it doesn't take long before he gets good at it, increases his distance, growing faster every time. It feels almost _fun_. Like a game, even.

 

And then when he's eleven, it becomes a matter of survival.

 

After Tarsus IV, life is different. Starker, somehow. Jim doesn't have to put on a new pair of trainers to know that he doesn't like running so much anymore. Still, he misses that feeling of release. Of hope, even. When he's forced to leave the hospital and go back to Iowa, Jim immediately goes looking for a substitute. During a particularly bad fight with Frank, he takes the antique corvette out of the garage just for the hell of it and when he turns it on, the engine roars into life, and his blood beings to _sing._ Having that engine under his control feels good and right, and not just that but making the world fall away behind him, to grow small, and to grow big, to feel the air whipping at his face, no longer as stale as an open grave, _that_ is awesome. That makes everything okay. And then. His joyride is cut short --a robot policeman catches up with him -- and things escalate and the next thing Jim knows he is scrabbling for earth with not leather seats but air beneath his legs. It takes pulling himself up over the edge of the quarry, and pressing his cheek against the dusty orange rock, heartbeat not even _that_ accelerated from adrenaline, for him to realize that it's crazy he didn't die. 

 

It's crazy he didn't die, _again_.

 

What's that, they say? One time is luck, two times is coincidence, but three…?

 

He knows he is at the edge of a precipice in more ways than one, and he can't be anything other than annoyed at the robot intruding on his concentration. 

 

He stands up, defiant. "I'm James Tiberius Kirk," he declares. What he doesn't is a complete manifesto: 

 

_…and probably since I was BORN, there's been something chasing after me. It's not as simple as a storm, or a maniac who wants me dead because of my allergies, or a stepfather who's an ass. Though I've had to deal with all of those, and it's sucked._

 

_No. It's my_ **_life_ ** _. It's got incumbency. It's what makes people look at me and say, "You're going to do great things," even though they're not half as smart as me and there's no way they'd know I'm special. I mean duh, I know I am. But seriously? No matter what I do, I can't_ **_not_ ** _get closer to growing up into some sort of… Someone who is supposed to be as good as my dad was, but guess what. I don't think he's that great. I don't wanna be anything like him! I never knew him and all I really know is that he let down everyone who should've mattered to him._

 

_So you know what? Screw that. Screw being a hero. I'd rather be better Wanna be ME._

 

There's not ten seconds before he jumped out of a car with squealing breaks, and now he he's in paralyzing handcuffs, and couldn't move if he tried. He wonders how long it will take for that perfect, _incumbent_ life to catch up with him now, and decides right then that he'll fightagainst it until he can't breath anymore, never going to stop moving, never going to let destiny pin him down.

 

Frank has wizened up. At least, he's gotten smart enough not to keep vehicles around the house any more. If he wants to keep Jim out of trouble altogether, it's a mixed success at best because Jim isn't above hacking past the security locks on motorbikes outside sleepy bars. It barely takes a few months of studying coding during class before he has learnt how to program an entire bike from scratch. After that, reprogramming someone's is a piece of cake.

 

He might've spent a day learning how he was supposed to ride it, though.

 

When Jim gets picked up a town over, with a crashed bike and a newly dislocated shoulder to show for it, his mother arrives with Frank to post the bail credits.

 

"You're a delinquent," Frank yells. "I'm not paying a single credit to get you out of there!"

 

Jim just cradles his arm, and grins like it's the best news he's ever heard.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Unfortunately long and dull writer's note:
> 
> This fic will start setting up Kirk/Spock from the next chapter. To quote an exceedingly brilliant fanfic author, "To read on if you dislike such things would be highly illogical."
> 
> This story has no beta, because I'm not taking it very seriously. Well, I'm taking my fun with it seriously. So please go ahead and point out any mistakes - kindly! :) And thanks for reading!


	2. the trouble with women is...

 

When Jim is older, he figures out that destiny can't be so different from any other force in the universe. Its got to have some sort of logic, some parameters -- which is great, because where there are rules, there must be loopholes.

Jim takes a deep breath of relief and stops rebelling against _everything_. From then on, he focuses on avoiding the things that he figures destiny would've decided on for him. Things that could slow him up and pin him down. 

So for starters, Jim takes the ideal of the beautiful wife, the two and a half kids, the vacation home on a remote, tropical planet, being nice, generous and all those other high-brow moral qualities, and throws them down the quarry with Frank's corvette. His brother can be the perfect son of George Kirk that everyone's expecting. Whatever. Jim doesn't care, he's going to find something else.

He was never interested in any of that stuff anyway.

 

* * *

Jim Kirk finds out about sex, and it's great. 

Seriously, sex is _great_ but Jim quickly learns to avoid having it with the girls at his high school, because they always end up pissed at him in the end. The problem isn't usually that they disagree about how good he is in bed; they're all over that. The problem is they always want to make it mean something greater than it does. He's in it for the rush, and then when he pulls out, he gets moving. That's how he is about everything, no reason for sex to be any different.

 Then Jim picks up an alien girl in the local bar - she's part-Betazoid, and thanks to her he has the first sexual encounter that genuinely fits his speed.

Alien women, he learns quickly, don't expect him to stick around for long. What they do expect tends to differ, a lot. It keeps the sex interesting.

Once Jim finds out that variety is the spice of life, he branches out and tries pretty much everything. He lets several guys take him home before he moves to San Francisco, at which point he goes back to alien women more or less exclusively.

If he's honest with himself - or with Bones, rather, when both of them are drunk off their faces in an alley in the dankest pit of San Francisco, during the middle of their first year at the academy - he's attracted to men just as much as women, maybe even more. But of course he doesn't pursue men, doesn't want to. Sex with men feels different, bad different. It's not just about being penetrated, though that has happened several times with alien women. It's not about piecing together incongruous shapes either, because, again, aliens.

 No. When he's with men, something opens up inside his chest. Something vulnerable. And everything feels too intensely.

 Anyway, that's not his problem anymore. it's not hard to find a hot and crazy probably-female creature to take home at a moment's notice. He quickly learns what places to go to, how to work the crowd.

This is how he meets Gaila at a party off campus. She's in a silver crop top and hot pants and she's perfect. It's not just the tantalizing green, Orian skin revealed at her midriff  (which is awesome- green is the color that made Iowa almost all right, the color of new life, crops not dying, people not dying, all that hope and shit). It's not even her pheromones (which are also great because they get him hard faster then his bike goes zero to sixty). It's the way that, as Jim shrugs an arm around her post-coitus and tries to tell her that he doesn't sleep with the same person twice, no offense, babe, she laughs like a maniac.

"That's cute. OK. But seriously, if I want to get off and you're close by I'll find you anyway." she says as soon as she's able. Then she stops, sniffs him. Widens her eyes. "Woah, did you expect me to be hurt...?"

Hearing this, Jim skips right past surprise and moves to ecstatic. He wraps a finger around a lock of her hair, affecting the lowest, sexiest register of his voice. "Is it too late to take back what I said and work something out, babe?"

"Do you even remember my name?" she replies, then howls with laughter again.

Their arrangement lasts just over two months. They don't talk much, and they rarely spend more than a few hours together at a time, but it's probably the longest relationship of any kind that Jim's had with a girl of any species, his family withstanding. 

 Their last night together is right before his makeup for the Kobayashi Maru, and though Jim is physically there, his mind's drifting somewhere else. He's playfully sliding his fingers past the underwire of Gaila's bra when she catches on, and abruptly stops responding -- a first for Jim. She crosses her arms and complains, loudly, that his anxiety smells so bad that it's throwing her off and he might as well tell her what's distracting him before they continue.

 Somehow they end up talking more than fucking.

 Jim spends the better part of thirty minutes beside and not against her, running a hand up and down the side of her stomach, rib to hip. Listening, answering, and kissing the familiar line of her neck when it starts to feel too intense.

"What would you do if someone ever said that to you, though?" Her voice comes out breathless, as always, right up against his ear. "Someone who you cared about?" 

He nibbles her darkening flesh, leans back with a smirk.

"Said what?" he challenges.

"'I think I love you.'"

Uhura storms in and Jim never gets to answer her question.

It would've been easy, though. It was on the tip of his tongue when Gaila shoved him under the bed to hide him.

"Come on Gaila," he'd have said. Would've said it right into the hard and insensitive spot in the center of her sternum. "I'd never let 'em get close enough for that to happen."

* * *

There's a break of action between saving the world and sitting around waiting for exam results, and Jim's mind nearly atrophies from boredom. He acquired inertia in space, and now everything planet side is so slow by comparison that he feels like he's been sentenced to watching stalactites form in caves.

The days drip by, and nothing important seems to happen. The energy, that need to be moving is building up and threatening to drive him crazy. Destiny is already laughing at him for his ploy at subverting her by playing captain - a role that, apparently, he's done in another life.

Going to the gym, drinking, and finding a hot lay afterward is the remedy Jim chooses to keep himself sane. It also puts him even more at the center of a lot of media prying and gossip and bullshit.  The attention had already been bad enough, seeing as he was a member of the crew onboard the federation starship Enterprise when they saved the world. Now he had to go ahead and become 'interesting.'

Okay, so admittedly he wasn't just another crew member. But he was just calling shots while other, braver people did the hard work to protect the Enterprise, the Vulcan council, to fight against Nero. He didn't save the earth. Not by himself, at least.

See? _Not a hero._

Anyway, it pisses Jim off that his friends are caught in the crossfire as certain members of the media attack him for being 'interesting' (all right, the exact words were 'his irresponsible playboy attitude'). One especially vitriolic journalist speculated on Jim's tendency to fraternize with people who don't like him that much, and ran the article with a blown up picture of Leonard McCoy. Such bull.

Anyone with eyes can see that Bones doesn't hate him. Only damn good friends would put their careers on the line for each other, but of course that fact was ignored for the sake of a grumpy photograph.

The thing is, Jim and Bones may have apparently different personalities, but they make a good team. They both know the universe is out to get them, and have decided they couldn't less about love and romance. They watch out for each other. Keep each other away from people who'd hurt them with feeling.

But when he finishes the article, Jim feels caught out all the same. Rubs at the wound when he think no one is looking, and wonders if maybe the writer had been on to something. He wonders if he's becoming predictable in his relationships: wonders what counter strategy he can employ. Sits on the edge of his bed and tries not to feel like he's five years old and on the porch in Iowa again.

As much fun as it is to use his new reputation for sex, he's not willing to become friends with any of those people. Much less would he date them. Even with the destiny  potential aside, he couldn't stand spending time with any of those people for longer than it takes for them to get each other off.

And he's not ditching Bones. Bones is awesome. Still, he has to do something. There just aren't so many options.

Except... 

There's one person he's met, who no one could accuse of being an obvious friend. Or an obvious enemy, either. In fact, most people would assume that this person didn't feel anything toward Jim one way or the other.

He's thinking of Spock, of course.

Granted, the half-Vulcan has emotions - Jim's brain and windpipe would both testify to that fact - but the fact remains that while Spock might be capable of feeling, he chooses not to most of the time. He controls them, fights them. Destroys them.

Which would make him safe, Jim realizes.

Spock is someone he can make his friend.

Except that the other Spock said they were already friends in the other universe. Destined to be friends.

Fuck.

 

* * *

 

It should be easy to keep from becoming friends with Spock. They got off on the wrong foot, fought each other over a job, declared each other unfit for command...

Why did he ask Spock to be his first, again? Oh, right. He wanted to keep the whole crew together, no exceptions.

He really hates destiny.

It's only been a few days since the five year mission began. They're on a probational sequence in close-warp range of federation headquarters, ensuring that all systems are functioning onboard before they go completely into the black.

There are a mind blowing number of kinks still left to work out on the bridge. Only some of them deal with the smooth running of the ship. Most deal with inter-relational communication issues. If it didn't mean more paperwork, he would write Starfleet a formal petition that they post a psychologist on the bridge full time. It shouldn't have to be up to him to deal with this crap.

"Uhura." 

The dark skinned girl turns around just outside the turbolift, sleek ponytail fanning out over her shoulder before she tucks it away with a precise motion.

"Yes, captain?"

"We're off duty, it's Jim."

"Yes, Jim?" She asks, already visibly irritated. They step into the lift and Jim waits for the door to close before he speaks.

 "You appeared to want to say something to me earlier, around seventeen hundred. But you didn't. What was that about?"

Uhura thinks back. "If I have permission to speak freely..."

"I'm asking you now for a reason, Uhura. I recognize it may be personal but I need to know what's going in with you in case it will affect your duty." Jim cringes internally at his voice. It sounds as if he's quoting a management textbook.

His words have the effect he'd wanted, though, because his communications officer relaxes her shoulders slightly.

"You should know that Spock has decided to try and turn over a new leaf with you," she tells him. "But frankly, Captain, you seem to be too busy antagonizing him to notice."

Jim can't believe it.

She's acting as if being Spock's girlfriend suddenly gives her the right to take over his relationships.

See that? More evidence that's he's a genius, not doing the relationship thing.

"Your concerns are noted," he acknowledges. But he adds, brisk and tight, "If Spock has a problem, he can come to me himself. And that goes for anyone else on the ship."

Uhura's lips thin.

"Message received," she says drily.

* * *

If Spock has decided to turn over a new leaf, he's showing it in a strange way.

Jim spends the remainder of the first week on duty watching Spock carefully to see how the Vulcan is responding to him, and whether or not he is putting out an olive branch of peace like Uhura had said.

Yeah. He isn't.

Spock is like a rock; nothing Jim says or does makes a mark on his face. Which is in itself kind if fascinating. As the mission progresses, Jim starts to play up his cocky attitude - among other human idiosyncrasies - just to see if it will make Spock crack.

No luck yet, but hope does spring eternal, even in zero gravity.

* * *

Somehow Jim is able to convince his first officer to give the crew leave when they dock at the last star base in the Sol system. Spock complains that _a night's reprieve after a mere 2.8 weeks may establish an inappropriate expectation among the crew about how much time they should get off duty_ , but Jim doesn't care. They're inexperienced and have been working at least three times harder than most crews would have just to get to optimal efficiency. He can build morale now, and endurance later.

Plus, he heard that the alcohol here is craft-brewed in space; not even synthesized. No way could he pass that up.

In retrospect, though, getting Spock to acquiesce had been a bit too easy. Jim should've thought about outside factors. While naturally, the commander hadn't thought that taking time off would be logical, he did have a girlfriend to please. Said girlfriend was now wearing a dark red skirt and heels, and standing close next to him so he could hear her over the din of the crowded bar.

Jim points this out to Bones, and they share a laugh about the stubborn Vulcan being bossed around by his human girlfriend and orders another round of drinks from the passing waiter. 

 The waiter returns a few minutes later with a tray full of drinks. The last thing Jim expects is for the officer-couple to take not two, but four glasses and a bottle off the waiters' tray, but that's exactly what they do, carrying the drinks to Jim and Bones' table. 

What the hell? Jim thinks. Hadn't Spock gotten the message that he didn't want to be friends? That he could care less about his shining maple leaf of friendship?

"Mind if we sit down with you?" asks Uhura. "There aren't any other tables open yet."

Bones is closest so she directs the question to him. That, or because she's sly and knows that, damn his southern charm, Bones is too polite to say no to a lady asking for a seat.

"Uh, yeah. Sure."

The couple squeezes in across from them, putting down two glasses and a bottle of Romulan ale (the local stuff ended up tasting like piss), plus Uhura's longstanding favorite - the Cardassian Sunrise - and, surprise, surprise, a water for Spock.

After a few moments of awkward silence as they pass around their respective drinks, Uhura opens up the conversation. "Well, I'm glad to see you two are enjoying your time at dock," she says, tipping her glass. Her voice sounds deceptively calm and sociable. "Though looking around, it hardly feels as if we've gotten off of the Enterprise at all." 

Bones grunts and pours a drink. "Rather be on land," he mutters to no one in particular. 

"Indeed, every department but engineering appears to be represented in this room," Spock agrees. 

Jim nods. "Yeah. Scotty ordered inspections of the engineering deck tonight. Said he needs to make sure his lady is ready to sing like a bird tomorrow." 

Spock works through the statement with obvious difficulty. "I am not certain what goal would be achieved by an avian song, Captain," he says.

"Uh..." Jim flounders. Is Spock trying to take the metaphor seriously, or is he making an actual _joke_? He looks at Uhura for guidance, but she is unsuccessfully hiding a smile behind her hand.

"Nevertheless," Spock continues at last, "In a future circumstance, it would be optimal were you to bring any proposals from Lieutenant Commander Scott to my attention sooner. There are maintenance regulations to which his department has been conforming in an irregular fashion, particularly in Section BH1.42, which I might have discussed with him before he began running his exercise. Nyota, were you aware of this...?"

Jim has tensed at the smoothly spoken barb. "Hikaru and Sulu did mention being disappointed Scotty wouldn't join them for drinks tonight," she says. If Jim's reading her right, she seems to be acting as if she's been attacked as well.

Unsurprisingly, Spock doesn't notice this change. "I see. Perhaps I will visit the lower decks in the morning, to ensure that entire pieces of working machinery have not been left exposed to the air, or potential spark damage."

The conversation completely peters out. But Uhura and Spock don't appear to be making any movements to leave. On an impulse, Jim throws his drink down on the table and turns to Bones.

"Hey, I just remembered!" he exclaims, slugging the man on the arm. "That girl I was talking about earlier, Thissah H'zarrath--"

Bones looks, thankfully, more scowly than confused at the random- and, obviously, welcome- change of topic. "Yeah, Jim?"

"Well, I never got started telling you the story."

"H'zarrath…. Are you making a reference to an Andorian acquaintance?" That's Spock, of course, apparently still playing the role of xenolinguistics professor/ limestone wall. Jim scrutinizes the vulcan's face but still can't read a single sign of interest there. Why did he even bother talking, then?

"If that's the name of a woman you tried to pick up, I'm sure it ends in tears," says Uhura, helpfully moving the conversation along with an insult.

Jim takes a long drink, ignoring all three stares currently directed at him, getting excited. This story is _guaranteed_ to make Spock and Uhura leave. "You're right," he tells her, "But not in the way you're thinking." 

Jim wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and launches into a raunchystory of when he visited New Des Moines and his aforementioned friend - who he would have been totally into, had she not technically lacked a gender - introduced him to a bunch of alien visitors of uncommon races. Really uncommon, like, one of them was blind and another seemed to have an extra brain. Then there was a really hot number with soft yellow skin, wild hair and perpetual doe-eyes. Jim made it all the way to the bed in her hotel room, and right as they were starting to make out Jim realized she was planning to eat him afterward.

'Just the good parts, the extra parts,' she had promised, hands wrapped around his bicep, squeezing with pleasure.

"You're kidding me," Bones' eyes goggle. "I've never heard of such a practice among humanoids."

Jim leans back, smirks. "Who said she was a humanoid?" 

Uhura chokes on her drink as Jim and Bones break down with laughter. Jim looks past her to Spock, who although not as visibly revolted, has an indecipherable expression. Perhaps it's not a crack in the veneer, but Jim definitely sees a message in that raised eyebrow.

Amazed that he's made any kind of dent, he stops laughing and stares after Spock as Uhura semi-tactfully retreats, claiming that the waiter is in route to take them to their table, _thanks for everything_. Kirk watches the pair go away, giving them a lazy wave, and when he turns back around he knocks his empty glass over by accident. 

Bones has him by the shoulder and drags him upright immediately. "All right, Jimmy," he says. "You've had enough. You're drunker than a bear in a blackberry patch. Let's get ya home."

"We're just getting started, Bones!" Jim is fairly convinced he didn't slur in there. He's not _half_ as drunk as usual, and they've barely been here two hours. "We haven't even met all the hot girls in here…!"

"What, you gonna try and pick someone up in front of your crew?" Bones barks with laughter. "Better choose a bigger star base next time. Besides, you've gotta run a ship through goddamn space tomorrow and meet those Antaran diplomats for dinner. As CMO I can't let you do that on a hangover. A worse hangover than you're already fixin' to have, anyway."

"Fine, doc," says Jim miserably, and shakes the hand off of him. He's not altogether even on his footing, though. Bones has a point after all, Jim thinks, watching as his friend turns around and grabs a charcoal-gray jacket off the wall.

"Y'know, Bones, your ass isn't that great," he says before he can acknowledge he'd been thinking it.

"You looking at my ass?"

"I looked at Spock's first," Jim explains. "Just comparing."

"The hobgoblin?! I should've known I didn't wanna know," grumbles Bones. Then, as they exit the establishment and emerge into the bright fluorescent light of the hallway: "Jim, about that sexual carnivorism shit. Were you tellin' the truth? It's not in your medical history."

Jim grins and pulls up his sleeve, revealing two faded half-moon scars. "Puts a new spin on 'love bites,' doesn't it?"

Bones whistles when he sees it, then looks away, but not fast enough. Jim can see a flash of expression on his face that all at once remind him of Spock's. If he didn't know better, he'd think it was pity or something.

 "Yeah, kid," says his friend, hands digging deep into the pockets of his jacket. "I'd say it does."

 

 

 


End file.
